Unkind Cuts
by writergirl96
Summary: It felt good to stand in the sunshinea again. I just wanted to leave the shadwos behind. One Shot


It felt good to stand in the sunshine again. I felt my toes dip into the warm water and I closed my eyes. I could hear Renee and Phil behind me, my mother screeching with laughter and Phil joining in. It felt good to be apart of something like this again, a carefree day at the beach, no worries.

I wanted to leave the shadows behind me. I knew that I would never forget him, and I never wanted to either but it was nice to step away from the rainy days of Forks, Washington and into the sunshine that Jacksonville, Florida provided. I still thought of him every day and the pain still consumed me but it had been ten months since he'd left me. It was very clear that he wouldn't be coming back to me anymore.

I wrapped my arms around myself and took another step into the ocean. I wondered what he was doing now, where he was at, who he was with, if I ever crossed his mind. It's hard knowing that the one that you love, no longer loves you. The one that you would give your life for, give your life to be with, no longer finds your presence worthwhile. It still stabbed at me, still burned me but I refused to let it bring me to my knees anymore. I'd made a decision when I left Forks that I would get on with my life, that I wouldn't wait in that town for him to come back to me.

I knew that Jacob had taken my leaving the hardest, even harder than Charlie had. He'd begged for me to stay and it had felt nice, I admit, to have someone beg for me. Especially when I'd been left behind by the person I wanted most in life. I knew that Jacob loved me and I knew that it was wrong to let things keep going on as they were with us. I knew that I loved him, too but not in the right ways. The love that I felt for him was nothing more than a dull echo of what I was capable of. And I couldn't do that to him. He deserved someone that got dizzy at the sight of him, someone who thought about him all the time, someone who wasn't so broken. It didn't matter what he said, I couldn't hand him less than he deserved. And the thing was, I knew that I wouldn't be ready for any type of relationship for a long time, years even. I couldn't make him wait that long.

I was trying hard to be grateful for what I'd had with Edward, and I was. It had been the most beautiful half a year of my life and I had enjoyed every second that I had gotten with him. Which is why it was so hard now because it seemed like my best years were behind me. I was eighteen and washed up.

But it wasn't as hard to get out of bed in the morning. I was doing it all by myself now, no one had to come and get me up. I started my mornings out on the beach, right as the sun was coming up. It was the solitude that I needed before spending another day with Renee.

She asked about him from time to time and though it broke my heart to talk about it, I did it, sometimes, for her. "Have you heard from him at all?" She'd asked quietly one morning as we sat on her back porch, a cup of coffee in each of our hands.

"No," I shook my head, staring into the caramel depths. "I haven't."

"What about his family? Alice? Is that what the girl's name was?"

"I haven't heard from any of them." I took in a breath that hurt, torn lungs and all, and looked up at her. "They're gone, Mom. They aren't coming back."

"I just don't understand how he could leave you. I saw how he looked at you when you were in the hospital in Phoenix and it absolutely astounded me how much love was in his eyes. It scared me a little."

I remembered how I had begged him to stay then and the tortured look that had been in his eyes. "Feelings change," I murmured, setting my coffee down and pushing away from the table, my stomach suddenly feeling uneasy. "I've gotta go."

"Bella," She said and her voice was firm this time, which surprised me. I turned back to look at her, already wrapping my arms around myself, trying to hold the pieces together. "I know that this is hard for you. But sometimes talking about it helps."

I shook my head. "Not for me, it doesn't." And then I walked away.

It was hard to remember him, because the pain cut me so deep every time that I thought of that red-bronze hair of his, those dancing amber eyes and the way that his cold skin felt against mine. It literally tore me to pieces until I was gasping her for air, trying to figure out how I was going to get through the rest of this life without him. But more than that, I was afraid that I wouldn't remember him one day. That the details of him would slip by me and that I would get something wrong one day. His voice already eluded me, it sounded dull and fake, almost. Nothing close to the beautiful melody that it actually was.

My heart still squeezed in pain when I saw happy couples together. _It won't last, _I wanted to tell them._ Nothing does. _Because we did love each other. I fully believed that. I had felt it every time that he looked at me, touched me. Which is why it was so hard to understand how he couldn't love me now.

I remembered the day that I had left Forks. I'd been in my room packing up the rest of my stuff, especially my purple bedspread, even though I hated the color, just so that when I was in Florida I could prove to myself that he was real. Because he had lain in these sheets with me. He'd held me in his arms and wrapped me up in these very blankets.

"Are you sure you can't stay, Bells?" Charlie asked me from the doorway where he was standing with his arms across his chest. He was trying to play tough but I knew that it was hard for him to see me go. And it was hard for me to go. More than he knew. For so many different reasons.

"Dad-" I started but he cut me off with a wave of his hand.

"You don't have to explain, Bells. He's everywhere. I know that."

And I am pretty sure that that was the day that he knew I was running. As fast as I could, as hard as I could. Because something had snapped inside me, changed inside me, when I'd jumped off that cliff. I had nearly killed myself to hear his voice. I couldn't let this go on any longer so I had to get away. I had run from this place and the memories that held me here because if I didn't, I might not make it at all.

But that didn't mean that once I got to Florida I wouldn't enjoy Edward's presence when offered to me. It always happened at nighttime, on the same beach, right around the same time. And I couldn't help it, it broke up the monotony of my days, made me feel good for just a little while.

The moon sparkled off the ocean tides and I sat on the cool sand, close enough to feel the water reach up and touch my toes. I wrapped my arms around my knees and pulled them into my chest. Renee and Phil were already in bed and I had borrowed my mother's car and come back to the beach. It was the only place, really, that I ever felt at peace. Sometimes, at night, when I came here, like this, I could feel him. And it was like he was with me again, if only for a time.

I would pretend that he was sitting with me and it was all that I really needed to be okay for a couple of minutes. I wouldn't press for conversation, I would just sit in the silence and the beauty of the shadows that were there. Because they were always there, no matter how far into the sunshine I went, the shadows always followed me.

He met me on the beach again and for some reason he was always dressed in black. From head to toe and it only made his pale skin stand out that much more. He greeted me with a smile tonight, just like he always did and I smiled back, feeling unsteady in my knees. "You look lovely tonight," The image said and I shook my head slightly. "No, you do." He said more firmly.

I nodded and smiled and he came and sat by me in the sand. I didn't trust my voice to say anything so I sat there beside him, the warm ocean water rubbing against my toes.

"Is it because of me that you felt you had to come all this way? Did I make you run this far?"

"I couldn't stay there without you."

He shook his head as if he were annoyed and looked at into the ocean. When his eyes returned to me, they were probing, sad. "Are you okay now, Bella? Are you happy?"

I took a minute before answering him because I had never lied to Edward before, even if it was only the Edward that lived on in my mind, in my memories. Part of me wanted to smile at him and say that I was fine, that I was happy. But it wasn't the truth. "I'm a mess most of the time, but I'm hoping that it's getting better. I'm not approaching happiness right now, but I'm okay, Edward. I didn't think that I'd be able to say that again. I still don't understand why you left, how you couldn't love me, where it went wrong, but I still love you and I'm still grateful for what we had, no matter how much it hurts me now."

"I'm sorry for that," He murmured, "For hurting you, I mean."

"I know you are." I whispered back.

In my hallucinations, he never whispered that he loved me, partly, I think, because I couldn't handle hearing that from him and also because I truly didn't believe that he did. He meant what he said when he left me in a torture of loss on the forest floor and I wasn't going to be getting him back ever again.

So I would focus on the parts of my life that I could enjoy for now. Like having conversations with vampires that weren't really there on midnight beaches and feeling the warm sand underneath your toes as you try and figure out how to put your life back together again. It seemed like a big project, one that I wasn't even sure I was up to but sometimes life doesn't leave you a choice. And life had already offered me something that was so beyond my wildest dreams that I couldn't really begrudge it for changing it's mind on me. I just wished that it had given me a little bit more time.


End file.
